Back in 2006, avid manga collector Christopher Handley’s life changed dramatically. Expecting to receive a new shipment of manga direct from Japan, Handley was greeted by his local police. The traveling package was marked as suspicious by U.S. Customs agents and protocol required them to open and inspect the contents. What they found among the various manga were seven books containing cartoon representations of minors engaging in sexually explicit acts, read loli-hentai.  Further search and seizure at his home revealed numerous anime related sites (animesuki, animenewsnetwork) and an extensive collection of animated DVDs, some being hentai as well.  A lengthy court battle ensued with the prosecution portraying Handley as would-be pedophile; the defense highlighting the fact he is a “prolific collector”, not one who focuses on specific lolita type manga, but all manga. 

Last week Handley pleaded guilty for lesser charges of possessing obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children and mailing obscene material, although many feel Handley was duped into taking the guilty plea rather than continuing the fight. Now comes the sentencing part, Christopher Handley faces up to a 15 year prison term along with $250,000 in fines and of course the loss of his manga. For a collector this can be a death sentence and if imprisoned, the real death rates in prison among pedophiles is higher than other convicted felons. While he is not charged with pedophilia, I doubt convicts will understand the nuances of acquiring and looking at drawings of characters who do not actually exist when the U.S. government doesn’t grasp this concept either.   

 The 2003 Protect Act under which Handley was charged outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and which lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” I am not advocating any type of exploitation of children, but I consider manga having artistic value. At no time during the search of his home or computer records did they find real child pornography nor advocacy of it. Drilled down to the core arguments, this was a guy, who likes reading manga, who has a smaller collection of loli-themed manga engaging in sex acts, in his own home, who is now being punished for a crime, with a max sentence of 15 years. Once again manga are comic books, he is not abusing children and somehow this translates to justice. 

[Wired]

There have been a number of incidents in which online predators have used online gaming services such as Xbox Live as a means to facilitate lewd relationships with minors. A newly purposed Texas bill (HB 22) aims to force convicted sex offenders to register their online handles and gaming persona. Depending on how strictly you interpret the bill, this may bar sex offenders from being able to utilize the internet to access commercial social networking sites. Read: Increasing the overall scope for future applications.

While this bill has not passed the Texas House or Senate, the Lone Star state has launched a major campaign to combat online predators. Being a resident of Texas I find it difficult to believe that such resources to police such a proposal exists. However, I do see the need to limit predator access to minors, but is HB 22 the way to go?

[GamerPolitics]

Clearly a fan of the Metal Gear Solid Series, a Turkish prisoner escaped using a cardboard box.

“The 42-year-old Turkish citizen – who was serving a seven-year sentence – had been making stationery with other prisoners destined for the shops.

At the end of his shift, the inmate climbed into a cardboard box and was taken out of prison by express courier.

Shortly after it had passed through the prison gates, the inmate made his dash for freedom by cutting a big hole in the tarpaulin of the lorry and jumping off.”

Solid “Turkish” Snake is on the loose somewhere in western Germany, presumably in search of giant mecha.

[BBC]

Today come to you two stories of real world insanity over virtual world crimes, its like a pulp fiction novel, only completely absurd. First up: romance, betrayal and revenge.

A 43 year old woman in Japan has been arrested for virtual murder of her online boyfriend’s Maple Story avatar. In-game the two characters were married and when one morning the woman found her character had been divorced overnight she log on to his account and deleted his character, effectively committing online murder. She faces 5 years in prison or a fine of up to $5000.

Next up, two teenagers in Amsterdam where sentenced to do community serviced after coercing a 13 year old boy into giving up a mask and an amulet in RuneScape. One boy got 200 hours, the other 160 hours of community service. At least no virtual lives were lost in this case.

[Yahoo News / News 24]

I have been saving this one for weeks! As we all know China is the pinnacle of innovation, technology, originality, and hard labor. . .well, that statement is true, just in the hard labor area. Great, vast factories roam the land to give “paying” jobs to the people, and bikes are almost up to par with the human population of China. Don’t we all check under our toys and find the Made in China text under almost 90% of them? Oh yeah, you’ve checked. But we, people from the net, even in our vast knowledge of the originality of a product when we see one, may be fooled by these Oriental magic artifacts of cheapness and copyright infringement I’ll present to you after the break. . .

Read more!

You might have heard about a minor scandal called Hot Coffee last year,  or probably you didn’t since it was so low key, yeah right! Well the big sex-minigame scandal finally comes to an end as Rockstar Games reached a settlement on the class action lawsuit and as a result you, the concerned and psychologically scarred citizen, are entitled to up to $35.00 USD in compensation.

Great that will cover about 15 minutes with any psychiatrist! The lawyers, blessed be their charitable and philanthropic hearts, will only get one million dollars for their services. Can you smell that? No its not the smell of hot coffee, that’s the smell of justice, being burned down to the ground.

[Gaming Steve]

Earlier this month an Indonesian boy died after imitating the actions of Naruto Uzumaki, strangling himself with a belt. Indonesian authorities have begun a witch hunt of sorts against violent television. While I am sorry for the boy’s death and the grief it must have brought to his family, this is the Internet and when a kid dies from watching Naruto, its funny.

Indonesia is just beginning to air Naruto and its already has a death toll. While here in the west we’re finally getting over the whole Naruto disaster, we always knew there was something wrong with Naruto fans, I guess we just didn’t know it could be fatal, until now.

[An Ethereal Shard / Via ANN]

Today on the early hours of the morning a group of 300 riot police officers raided Meave street in downtown Mexico City, a place known as a Mecca for piracy, looking to confiscate pirated Video Games and arrest the people behind the operation. Things didn’t go as planned though, as tens of store owners and patrons attacked the police from 5 different flanks. The fight went on for hours until 3AM when the merchants retreated, some people got arrested and a huge amount of consoles, mod-chips, pirated games and even hacked arcades were confiscated. In other news I’m leaving on a plane to go bribe the police evidence depot guard.

[Hechos]

Following the recent trend of otaku, and specifically cosplayer abuse in recent years in Japan, a group of concerned cosplayers have formed Japan’s first non-profit organization to promote cosplay culture, foment understanding of cosplaying and counsel those cosplayers who have been victims of abuse.

Its no wonder that with the recent fascination the mainstream has had over otaku culture and therefore outsiders entering what used to be save havens for otaku and cosplayers, they have been victims to abuse and bullying. Cosplayers in particular suffer from stalking and sexual abuse, and it doesn’t help that a good portion of Japan still has that whole “if it looks like a female, its asking for it” mentality. So this guys wont take it anymore, they are willing to fight back, in fact I’m sure if someone is in need of legal counseling they’d gladly cosplay as Phoenix Wright for them, and that’s what I call commitment!

[Cosengokai / Via ANN]

The same famous prison that brought you the massive Thriller dance is apparently taking requests for new dance routines and someone saw fit to suggest Hare Hare Yukai, the Haruhi dance.

This is apparently just an early rehearsal and its not the whole troupe, still its pretty damn awesome. Here’s hoping they do Lucky Star next!

Thanks Godsh0t!